Where All Lanes Are Fast Lanes: The High-Tech Bowling Alley

By DAVID KUSHNER

Published: January 7, 1999

Pity the pin boys. They were the shadowy tough guys at the ends of the bowling lanes who risked life ad limb to line up the pins, someties for as little as a nickel a game. Extinct for decades, they are the dodo birds of bowling.

At high-tech lanes like Chelsea Piers in Manhattan, mechanics now tend digital cameras and the software of the electronic pin boys. Bowling, said to date from ancient Egypt, has grown increasingly high-tech in recent years as bowling equipment manufacturers have sought to transform it into a faster game for the digital age.

The sport has come a long way since 1946, when AMF Bowling introduced the first automatic pin spotter in Buffalo. Developed in an empty turkey house, the pin spotter used a mechanical suction system to life the pins and set them back down. Newspapers marveled. ''Robot Pin Boy Never Shows Fatigue,'' said a headline in The Brooklyn Eagle.

Today, the pin spotter is one part of a digitally networked system that bowlers interact with soon after they step through the door at most bowling alleys. When bowlers check in, clerks use a Windows NT Ethernet local area network to assign lanes and make changes if necessary.

Keeping score with pencil and paper is a thing of the past. Automatic scoring has become the norm. Players simply punch in their names at a scoring terminal and the system takes over, displaying and updating the information on monitors hanging overhead (an unfortunate innovation for bowlers having a particularly bad game). Computer animations appear between players' turns; sometimes they even illustrate the best angles for the next shot. System crashes are rare.

A typical bowling cycle, which runs from the moment a ball is released until it is returned, lasts only about 8 1/2 seconds, according to AMF, which has its headquarters in Richmond and is one of the leading producers of bowling equipment around the world. That's half the time a cycle took 50 years ago. Speed has become a major selling point for competing manufacturers like AMF and the Brunswick Corporation of Muskegon, Mich.

To make lanes more consistent ad quick in the new high-tech bowling alleys, pine and maple boards have been replaced by synthetic surfaces (a covering made from digital images makes the floor look like wood). The first two-thirds of the lane is lubricated with a viscous oil-based conditioner; the last third is kept dry to increase the ball's spin near the pins.

Just before striking the pins, the ball passes a ball trigger, an electric eye that tells the pin spotter to begin cycling in three seconds. That is the amoutn of time designated by the American Bowling Congress to insure that the pins have had enough opportunity to fall down and spin. After the ball strikes the pins, an infrared camera takes a digital image that tells the spotter which pins to life and replace.

After the second ball (if necessary) is played, the 10 pins are replaced and the score updated on the screen. A printout of the game can be picked up at the front desk. The process is efficient, and that speed and ease translate into increased profits, said Randy Daniel, vice president for manufacturing at AMF, which has sales of about $700 million annually. Despite the high-tech advances, AMF reports that the price of bowling equipment has decreased by 15 percent in the past decade. Installation and equipment costs reach $40,000 per lane (most bowling centers have 20 lanes); software and other product upgrades are about $1,000 per lane each year.

(High-tech lanes aren't the only places to combine bowling with technology - bowling games can be found at www.bowltech.com/games.htm.)

Both AMF and Brunswick have injected some razzle-dazzle into their high-tech innovations. Brunswick came first with Cosmic Bowling, which features thumping dance music and fluorescent pins and balls. AMF followed suit with Xtreme bowling, its own version of what Mr. Daniels described as disco bowling; bowlers hurl glow-in-the-dark boogie balls, as they are called, as music plays. On either side of the lane, blinking red bumpers flash like airline runways. The bumpers keep every ball in play.

Is anyone nostalgic for the grittier days of pin boys and pencil-smudged scorecards? ''Only the motion picture scouts,'' said Bill Lemon, owner of Bowlmore Lanes, a 60-year-old bowling alley in Greenwich Village, which moved to automatic scoring two years ago. ''They love to find those old scoring desks for their films. Other than that, I don't think that anyone misses them.''

Photo: Taking Over the Pin Boy's Job Even before a bowling plows through the pins with a satisfying thwack, microprocessors are choreographing what comes next: lifting and replacing the pins still in play, removing the rest and keeping track of the score. 1. Bowler rolls the ball 2. BALL TRIGGER A small box near the pins contains a photoelectric eye, which ransmits an infrared beam to a reflector on the opposite side of the lane. When the ball passes, the light is blocked briefly. The ball trigger uses the length of this period of darkness to compute the speed of the ball, and it alerts the pin spotter to begin cycling. 3. C.C.D. CAMERA A camera with a change-coupled device is located just in front of the ball trigger and is trained on the neck area of the pins. Infrared light is beamed down onto the pins. Because each pin is in a different position, the light is reflected with varying intensity. That crates a digital image of the pins before they are hit. After the pins are knocked down, the camera takes an image that shows which pins are missing. 4. PIN SPOTTER The pin table descends and, using clamps, picks up the pins that are still standing, then replaces them (see detail at right). American Bowling Congress rules say the pins must be put back exactly where they were after the ball came through (a ball can sometimes cause a pin to move a couple of inches without knocking down the pin). 5. BALL RETURN A special round door senses the ball's weight and lets the ball exit from the pin spotter pit. A rotating belt propels the ball into the return lane, where it rolls back to the player. Some ball returns use a ramp (and gravity) to return the ball. Pin Spotter Cycle A. The pin table holds two sets of pins and is above the pins during play. The approach of the rolling ball, registered by the ball trigger, alerts the pin spotter to begin cycling. B. The sweep lowers, and the pin spotter determines if pins are missing. If pins are down, the pin table descends and picks up the pins that are still standing. The table then rises back into position. C. After the standing pins are lifted, the sweep pushes the ball and pins into a rolling carpet system at the back of the lane called the pit. The pins in the pit are carried to the pin wheel, which returns the pins to the pin spotter's table. D. The pins that were lifted up are replaced. After the table and sweep rise back into position, the pin spotter is ready for the bowler's second ball. The pin spotter sends digital information to the scoring unit for processing. Computers in a Bowling Center The front desk computer has overall control of the system. It is used to activate lanes, compute charges, keep league statistics and create financial reports for the manager. The overhead monitors, run by the scoring computers, are used to display scores. Computer-generated graphics and animations can be used to indicate pins that were left standing and a proposed angle to pick up the spare. (Source: AMF) (Photographs by Mika Grondahl/The New York Times)